Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Palmer Award: Finalists Spotlight, Part 3

Each year, through the Palmer Award application process, we learn about amazing LeaderShapers who are out doing good work. Earlier this month we announced the 2015 recipient, Carolina Ruggero. Now we'd like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the work of this year's group of finalists. Here are two more of the six Palmer Award finalists:

Naomi Maisel, a senior from Emory University, is committed to ending hunger. She's taking a step towards that close to home, through Campus Kitchens Emory (CKE). The executive board is ServSafe certified, allowing them to legally handle food, purchase carrying containers, purchase dry goods, secure community partners, and organize logistics for pick-ups, drop-offs, and cooking shifts.In six months, the group donated over 2,000 nutritious meals to four shelters and/or kitchens in the Atlanta area. These efforts are also impacting the Emory community as people are being introduced to new concepts around food, nutrition, and waste. Naomi's passion for her cause has only increased since establishing a chapter of CKE and she plans to continue her education, focusing on food insecurity, income disparity, and the health impacts of nutrition and hunger.

Ousmane Kabre, from the University of Wisconsin and a native of West Africa, "envisions a restored Africa where individuals of ages are striving to take control of their education, supporting their communities, and contributing to the economic development of a nation." As a boy, access to education was difficult to attain and required Ousame to begin working at age 12. This experience is an influential factor on his goal for his fellow Africans to have access to education. Founding the organization Leading Change on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus is helping to move forward this goal. After considering some of the challenges the people of Africa face, Ousame and his teammates are working to create an IT-based library to overcome the computer gap, to extend current libraries to support higher education, and are working to establish a technical college accessible to low-income families. They have facilitated a partnership with Lycée Municipal Vénégrée and are eager to implement the first phase of their pilot program - creating a classroom of 42 students with internet connection provided by the government. In case you missed it, you can learn more about finalists Anastasia Ostrwoski and David Chen in this postand Alyse Ruriani and Lily Daigle here.